the holes at the back of our knees tingle, 1786 Africa Map, by Mbongeni Dlamini
the holes at the back of our knees tingle
1786 Africa Map
Map Origin: Jean-Baptiste Louis Clouet, Paris.
Mbongeni Dlamini, Swati Eswatini (Swaziland)
Notes from the artist: Taking the 1786 French map of Africa as a starting point, the piece is an intervention, an obstruction, a repossession and a haunting. The map itself brazenly details the riches of Africa and the best places from which to extract them.
A layer of lubovu redacts the colonial text, interferes with the map and reclaims the information therein by offering it to the ancestors. Lubovu, or ochre, has been used creatively and ceremonially in this part of the world for tens of thousands of years. Ochre serves the purpose of communing with or introducing the ancestors, thus giving the map to my ancestors to metabolize.